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May 1, 2006

Tragic Magic

Oh, ferchristsakes. I flipped on the TV and got to see the no-longer nubile Amy Fisher squaring off against possibly the ugliest man with a mullet, Joey Buttafucco. Before I could switch the channel, they ran a blurb about David Blaine (I may have spelled that wrong, and he ain't worth looking it up for).

I hate these shows, and after Entertainment Tonight sponsored the wedding of child rapist Mary Kay Letourneau last year, I knew even the almost-above board ones had hit the skids. Anyway, back to wonderboy Blaine. He is apparently going to submerge himself in a tank of water for a week. Wahoo. He's a stunt magician, or something like that. So why do I care?

This is the line I just heard. Butthead Blaine is going to try to hold his breath for nine minutes or something. Fine. But the announcer calls him an American Hero for this feat.

American Hero? How 'bout someone tells the kids in Iraq, and the increasingly older reservists being called up for sacrifice, that a nutball millionaire magician with a nose for publicity and a hankering for attention that this is the definition of 'hero'?

In a country (and now Canada too, with Harper rushing to lick Bush's boots), increasingly torn between showing support for their troops while wrestling with the notion that we want them home, I find it difficult to have major media outlets defining some idiot illusionist as a hero.

It's this ridiculous flinging about of accolades that has lessened the meaning of any of them.